Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Nair for your hair

My daughter is 10 - going on 18. She is at that wonderful age of being way too old for her age (having been exposed to the music and movie stars of today) and way too naive (having been held on tightly to by her mother and father and everyone else who adores her). What you get with this combination is a girl who wants to wear bootie shorts and hooker boots -but then stinks to high hell because you can't convince her that she needs to wear deodorant.

The other night, she very casually says to me, "Mom - I want to start shaving my legs." Before I shout out the obvious - "Are you crazy!" - I try to remember when I started shaving my legs. I don't recall when I started, but I know I was already shaving by the time I was in sixth grade and she is going into the fifth. I also know I didn't even ask my mom if I could - so I suppose it was good that she was at least asking me. If I would have asked my mother - I might have been spared some of the painful life lessons of the lady bic.

So - to just put everything right out on the table - I said.....

MOM: Now - you know, the only part on your body you can shave is your legs.

DAUGHTER: Oh, I know - gross! I realize she thinks I mean her lady parts.

MOM: No - I mean, you can't shave your arms or stomach or anything like that. (One of the things I wish my mom would have told me.)

DAUGHTER: You can't? (See what I mean by the maturity/immaturity combo.)

But I forgot to even elaborate on that because my mind is stuck back on her reference to shaving lady parts. I'm thinking, "How does she even know you shave lady parts? What trash on TV has she seen now? Or, what if her friends are already shaving their lady parts?! Wait a minute - she doesn't even have hair on her lady parts - does she??? I think when I saw her change the last time she didn't, but maybe in two days she's sprouted a full bush! OH GOD - I'M NOT READY FOR PUBIC HAIR!"

DAUGHTER: Well Kelly (her step-mom) says I can just use this stuff you rub on and then use this mitten-like thing and buff it off.

So - I told my daughter my Nair story. I was a little older than her and decide to give the old Nair a try. I don't really remember if it worked or not on my legs. What I do remember is that I thought I would see if it worked on my upper lip. I now know why they make Nair for the face - because if you put regular Nair on your face, it will melt the entire first layer of skin right off. I ended up with a chemical burn, across my lip, in the shape of a mustache.......that turned into a nasty green infection.....that turned into impetigo.....that spread all over my body. Good thing I got that peach fuzz off my upper lip - I mean, that's embarrassing for a girl in Junior High to have!

So, I think that story pretty much covered the topic of not shaving anything but your legs.

To this day - when I tell anyone else that story - I tell people that while I was putting it on my legs, I accidentally got some on my lip. :)